


Feeling Dangerous

by Avelera



Series: After Uprising [5]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: BDSM, First Time, Fluff, Kink Negotiation, Light Bondage, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Oral Sex, POV Hermann Gottlieb, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), in which hermann is a not so secret romantic and a huge dork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 13:47:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18012077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avelera/pseuds/Avelera
Summary: Newt and Hermann have been living together since Newt's release from PPDC custody. Life's almost normal again, sharing a room, bickering, and occasionally making out on the couch when they're not fighting the legal battle to prove Newt's innocence.The only question that remains is: what comes next?





	Feeling Dangerous

**Author's Note:**

> I requested prompts for a smut scene in this timeline and received some lovely ones that inspired this fic. To those of you that left them, thank you!

The minute they were back inside the flat, Newt sat at the kitchen table and let his head thud to the wood. It didn’t look, or sound, as if he made any attempt to slow it.

“Six hours. I thought getting the drop-kick from Shao or, I dunno, being a sock puppet for the _end of the world_ at  _least_  meant I was done with six-hour meetings, but fuck me, right? Six  _fucking_  hours, Hermann. With  _lawyers._ ”

Hermann grunted in agreement and dropped unceremoniously into the chair across from Newt. His leg was throbbing after those hours spent in the inhospitable office chairs in the PPDC meeting room where Newton was arrayed with his counsel against Shao’s corporate lawyers and the military legal team of the PPDC. What responsibility did Newton bear for the attacks? Now that he could speak freely without the Precursors seizing control (or could he? another question leveled at him) it was time to establish if the man was in any way willing or complicit in the sabotage of Shao’s company, if Liwen  _Shao_  was wittingly or unwittingly complicit, and what to do with the whole bloody mess given that the heretofore scientific  _impossibility_  of human possession was on the table to excuse Newt for “his” “actions”.

Hermann’s jaw ached from biting his tongue for so long. It was that or launch into an infuriated and likely unhelpful screaming match in Newton’s defense, and he needed to keep his composure. If only to keep Newton from launching into an infuriated and likely unhelpful screaming match with Liwen Shao over various topics which were not, unfortunately,  _limited_  to Newt’s defense.

“What do you want to do tonight?” Newt said. He dropped his head back, eyes closed as he draped himself like a rag doll against the kitchen chair. “Whatever you want. As long as it doesn’t involve moving or using my brain, I’m down.”

“Nothing,” Hermann grunted.

“A man after my own heart.”

They lay there like a couple of wrung-out dishrags for an indeterminate amount of time before Newton groaned and pushed himself upright, only to fall forward onto the table again. “Food?”

“Takeout.”

“You’re a genius,” Newt muttered.

“You only say that when you agree with me.”

“Mmm,” Newton agreed. “Well, why don’t you enjoy it while it lasts and pick what we eat?”

Chinese it was, which meant the local eatery on the island that Hermann could order from without checking the menu. It was how they found themselves later ensconced on the couch, Newt mindlessly flicking through streaming options. It was still relatively early and bit by bit Hermann could feel the stress of the day falling off his skin like flecks of eczema. It would be an hour before the food arrived. Newton’s finger depressed the remote button and flipped to the next option, some melodramatic, high-budget, high-fantasy Lord of the Rings-ripoff.

“Well, this looks terrible,” Newton remarked and flicked the program on. An orchestral number swelled over a dark screen. Hermann closed his eyes.

“Do you want a drink?” Newton said. “I feel like this calls for a drink.  _Today_  calls for a drink.”

“There’s a bottle of wine in the cabinet,” Hermann said without opening his eyes.

“Do you have literally  _anything_  else?”

“I don’t make a habit of drinking, so no.”

“Wine it is then.”

Hermann kept his eyes shut, dozing slightly until the couch cushion's shifting meant Newton had returned. Two dusty wine glasses clinked on Hermann’s coffee table. The volume was low but some nonsense sword fight in a misty gray-washed forest clashed onscreen. Newton filled the glasses and took an experimental sip.

“Oof, this is  _terrible_. What was this, five bucks at the 7-Eleven? I can’t believe this didn’t come in a box.”

“It was from a colleague,” Hermann said. He took up his glass and an experimental swig, only to find Newton was completely correct. “I didn’t exactly check the label on a gift. My deepest apologies if the vintage offends you.”

“Nah. Cheap is good. Cheap’s better, actually. I could chug this swill aaaall day,” Newt said and there was something to his joviality that made Hermann look up in question. Something hollow.

“I never knew you to be such a snob,” Hermann said cautiously.

Newt shrugged, his lips twisting before he looked away. “Yeah, well. Let’s just say I’ve lost my taste for the good stuff, but I know this isn’t it. Seriously, this shit is heinous, Herms.”

Hermann snorted but said nothing. There was no need. He had seen the fine clothes and expensive watches. He could guess that the Precursor’s taste for the trappings of luxury had extended to Newton’s food and drink. The years of Newton’s captivity by the Precursors loomed between them. Sometimes, in the dead of night when they lay side by side in Hermann’s bed, Newton would mention a detail of those years as if parting with a secret, speaking in a whisper, and Hermann’s heart would crumble to dust.  _Sometimes I’d pretend it was all a dream,_  Newton said.  _Sometimes I’d go to sleep and all I wanted was to wake up and find out it was, either that or just… not wake up at all._  And Hermann would say nothing, couldn’t. Instead, he would wrap his arms around Newton and hold him to his chest until the sun rose and banished with it all traces of such intimacy, such sentiment.

During the day they were as they had been. They bickered. They complained about work, which now consisted of Newton’s trial. They criticized one another’s cooking. They watched television on the couch and sometimes they held hands while doing so. They kissed, frequently and with great enthusiasm, if always behind closed doors.

It hadn’t gone further. Hermann wasn’t sure he knew how to take such a step. Newton was… Newton. They knew each other as intimately as two souls could. For five years they’d spent every waking moment together, and it only felt a natural extension of their years in the lab to return to such a state, as if the intervening decade had never happened. They knew the best and worst of one another (mostly the worst) and when Hermann leaned against Newton’s shoulder, fanciful thoughts played in his mind of Plato’s soulmates, of two bodies that had once been sundered finally rejoined. He could all but hear the thrum of Newton’s thoughts, and perhaps Newton could his, over the abandoned highways of their ghost Drift. A simple and perfect sense of belonging _._

Unfortunately, being in such perfect sync meant that  _neither_  of them knew how to go forward. It was uncharted territory. They’d shared everything there was to share with another human being except their bodies. Late in the night, when Newton thought he was asleep, he could feel Newton’s desire, could hear the soft, almost imperceptible moans that might have been his name as Newt released that tension beside him. Assumed Newton must hear him in return when Hermann judged wrong that Newt was sleeping. They were grown men with needs, after all. But neither reached out to touch the other. There was yearning, but then, they’d both grown accustomed to yearning without satisfaction. Without hope.

Some habits were impossible to break.

The food arrived. Newton plopped the cartons down before them and refilled their wine glasses until the bottle was half empty. They regarded the food and wine. They ate the food. They sipped the wine. Newton refilled their glasses again. The television showed an improbable mountaintop castle lit by golden sunlight. There was more mist. A robed figure stood on a parapet and declaimed some further nonsense. Newton leaned his head against Hermann’s shoulder, his wine glass half-empty and cupped between his hands.

“Feeling better yet?” Newt said.

Hermann was surprised to realize he did. “Mmm.”

“This movie is terrible.”

“Mmm,” Hermann agreed.

“I know something that could improve it.”

“Mmm?”

Newton switched off the television. Their reflections stared back at them on the black screen. Blessed silence descended and the last of the tension melted from Hermann’s shoulders.

They sipped their wine further and said nothing. When their glasses were empty, Newton refilled them again. A quarter of the bottle remained.

“Should I say something? I feel like I should say something,” Newt said.

“Don’t strain yourself,” Hermann replied. The wine was beginning to reach his system, leaving him warm and content. Hermann drank little on average, given his medication. Even on a low pain day, drink tended to hit his thin frame quickly, leave him lightheaded, and he abhorred the loss of control. Most of his days were spent in a professional environment anyway, and he had few he could name “friends” who weren’t also colleagues. It always seemed wiser to abstain. Being with Newton was different. Newton had always been different.

“No, but really,” Newt said. “Thanks for coming to that meeting today. You didn’t have to be there.”

“I did.”

“Dude, I am sound of body and at-least-ok of mind, plus I’ve got a lawyer. I could have handled it.”

“I didn’t mean for your sake,” Hermann said. He regarded the flecks of dregs clinging to the side of his wine glass. “I wouldn’t have been able to focus on anything else besides.”

“Just a born worrywart, huh?”

“Only for what matters.” Hermann swirled the wine to recapture the particles, let those words settle on Newton as they may.

“I don’t matter.”

“Newton.”

“Ok, fine. I  _shouldn’t_.” Newton huffed. “Not to you. I shouldn’t  _want_  to matter to you either, or to anyone. I  _should_  be all… Batman. Self-sacrificing,  _woe is me,_   _I don’t deserve to live,_ or whatever after all… that. After what they did. But I don’t. Maybe you did too good a job convincing me it wasn’t my fault.”

“ _Newton._ ”

“Hey, that’s progress, isn’t it? You should be proud of me. I’m learning to be a selfish dick again. And not just about the Armani.”

“I’ve always been proud of you.”

“Pssh. Oh,  _stop_  it, you. No wait,  _go on_.” Newt fluttered his eyelashes. “Tell me about how  _fabulous_  I am, how I  _blinded_  you with my genius from all the way across the lab. Come on, you can admit it. I could use the ego boost.” 

The wine must have mellowed him. Hermann shrugged, feeling Newt’s head rise and fall against his shoulder, and feeling no desire within himself to make jibes or play keep-away with the truth just to give Newton the satisfaction of the game. “Very well. You are, without contest, the most brilliant individual I’ve ever met. You are brave, unconventional, and self-sacrificing to a fault. The world as we know it would have ended if not for you, not only without your intellect but also your capacity for heroism. I count it one of my greatest privileges that I lived in a time where I could know the least part of you.”

“… Christ, you really know how to lay it on thick, huh?” Newt said. His voice cracked. “And you bought me dinner. Should I feel propositioned? I feel like I was just propositioned.”

“As in, proposed to?” Hermann snorted. His voice remained level and disinterested. At the thought, a thrill of adrenaline lit up his veins, pounded in his heart, and faded as he took a deep breath. Proposed to. Newton and he, a unit both inside and out. Newton, his. He, Newton’s. He blew out a second, steadying breath through his nose that might have been mistaken for a chuckle. 

“Yeah, but like, for sex. No need to look so scandalized.” Hermann knew for a fact his expression hadn’t changed, even as Newton lifted his head from Hermann’s shoulder to search his face.

Newton let his head fall back again and his fingers fidgeted around the stem of his wine glass. His shoulders tensed too, which Hermann could feel with their bodies pressed side to side like this. He hardly needed the ghost Drift to sense how Newton braced himself, chest puffing out as if in self-defense before blurting, “Dude, what are we? Like, to each other? I’ve been trying to figure it out for weeks now and it’s driving me crazy! _You_ kissed _me_ , for the record, so I’m not delusional here for asking if we’re a  _thing_  now? We’ve been joined at the hip for years... eh, minus some interruptions. We live together. You just sprouted poetry at me, like serious  _poetry_  about the privilege of knowing me and calling me all sorts of nice but super archaic compliments, and you  _hate_  poetry almost as much as you hate complimenting me. I’m honestly aflutter. I think I have the vapors and may need a fainting couch if we weren’t already on one. Seriously, we’re on the couch together. We’re _cuddling_. There’s wine. It’s more than a little romantic, right? I’m not crazy for thinking this is a little romantic, but it could be just that, just a  _little_  romantic, and I’d be fine with it. I’m already  _pretty stoked_  for what’s going on here but what  _is_  going on here? Parameters, man. Feel free to set all the rules, I just need to know what they  _are_  so I don’t…”

“Don’t what, Newton?” Hermann said as Newton’s hesitation dragged.

“… Fuck it all up! Don’t lose the only thing that makes sense anymore. Here, this place, this apartment. It makes _sense_. It’s like the best parts of the lab but without all the shit like working ourselves to death or the world ending. We’re just… us. I don’t worry about the future unless there’s a stupid meeting like today. Sometimes I even forget the past for a whole five minutes. I don’t want to mess that up because I’m reading signals that aren’t there.”

“And what would you want those signals to say if they were there? If they could be anything you want?” Hermann said. His heart was thundering so hard that Newton must be able to hear it, but thankfully the haze of wine was helping him to remain at least outwardly calm. In a way, it was almost  _fun_  to watch Newton squirm at the question, gaping at the words as if Hermann had just thrown a complex equation at him that he couldn’t believe existed, much less answer. “I doubt there’s anything you could say that I would find so very shocking or offensive.”

“I want you to put on a Godzilla costume and stomp around a papier-mâché city with me,” Newt snorted. “Too much?”

“I’ve always been fonder of Mothra.”

Newton barked a laugh. His shoulders eased, and he slumped down further in the couch. “Ok fine, point taken. I’m not gonna win this round of the weird shit battle. Hell, you’ve been in my brain and you play with Kaiju guts now. For all I know, you’ve already got a Mothra cosplay in your closet.”

“Only for special occasions.” Hermann’s lip quirked upward. Newton bolted upright and turned to stare aghast at him.

“Did you seriously just make a  _joke?_  You, Hermann Gottlieb? Holy fuck, this is just…this is the  _best_. When did you become cool?Is  _this_  what I’ve been missing out on when I was stuck at Shao?” Newton said. “Man, I would have killed for this back in the lab. Just… shooting the shit, taking a step back from the insult arms race.”

“An excellent term for it,” Hermann remarked. His wine glass was almost empty, when had that happened?

“Right? I’m kinda proud,” Newt said. “But also what the fuck, you’re actually giving points where they’re due? Is this because we’re making out now? ‘Cuz I would have made out with you from  _day one_  if I had known it would magically remove the stick from your ass.”

Hermann ignored the jibe and instead considered Newton's words. “Perhaps. But I don’t think I was ready then.” Newton perked up beside him. “Back then, I saw all your overtures of friendship as insults and your socialization methods as a challenge. I was too… defensive, immature, to be honest with you about how I felt. I didn’t see how doing otherwise could lead to anything but rejection, and that only made me more defensive. But now, after all that’s happened, after our Drift, knowing what I do now…”

“Now… what? I mean, let’s not get too rosy about it, a lot of those  _were_  insults,” Newt interrupted. “Because buddy, if you thought  _you_  were immature, have I got a newsflash about yours-truly that’s going to blow your socks off.”

“Now I want to marry you,” Hermann drained his wine as Newton went silent, gaping at him. There was only a drop of wine left in the bottle. In the name of their old rivalry, he poured it for himself. “So as you can see, I doubt there are any boundaries you could push that would scare me off.”

“Dude,” Newt blurted, “we’ve been together like… not even three weeks.”

“I’m aware,” Hermann said.

“I kinda almost ended the world.”

“We just spent six hours in an interminable meeting over that fact, Newton. I’m hardly in the dark about it.”

“You  _hated_  me!”

“Never,” Hermann said and took his last sip. He’d already said more tonight than he would have once dared in a lifetime. Might as well admit to this. “And if you did not see that in the Drift, perhaps you’re more self-centered than I gave you credit for.”

“Nice to see love hasn’t blinded you to my flaws or anything, geez.”

“If love could change my view of you, I would never know. I have loved you since I knew your name.”

Newton gaped at him. The wine left a flush in his cheeks and ears, or perhaps it was all a blush. “Y’know, maybe if we’d had you to write our lyrics, my band wouldn’t have sucked so much. Can I offer you a job? You’ve gotta knock it off with the lines, man, I’m starting to feel a bit inadequate here and this was supposed to be  _my_  awkward confession that left me sleeping on the couch.”

“We don’t have to be on the couch at all if you don’t want.”

Newton jerked up and turned around in his seat. “Hermann  _Gottlieb_ , did you just  _actually_  proposition me like the smooth bastard I didn’t know you are?”

Hermann’s eyebrows rose and he offered a crooked smirk.

* * *

Newton kissed like he ate: messy and uncaring of appearances. Like he was trying to swallow Hermann down. His fingers worked Hermann’s buttons, then warm palms moved over his chest, over the divot at his sternum. Newton paused to rip his own shirt off, revealing the colorful expanse of his tattoos like a second skin and crawled into his lap, legs bracketing Hermann’s hips as he pushed him backwards onto the bed, hands rising to cup Hermann’s cheeks as he moaned into his mouth.

Flushed from the wine and from Newt’s hands running over his skin, Hermann felt… erotic. Desirable. Like his body was not merely a cage that limited his movement or was forced to put up with the discomfort of another human’s touch. The softness of Newton’s stomach melded against the concave surface of his own like a puzzle piece. The weight of Newt pressed him down in a way that held him still, comforting rather than entrapping.

It felt  _right_. Always before intimacy had been an ordeal. He had to mentally prepare himself for the eventuality, agonize over his incompleteness, his failings in the realm of the normal, his inadequacy against the common standards of desirability.

None of that mattered now.

Newton kissed him like it was where they both belonged.

“Is this ok?” Newt said breathlessly and moved down to press kisses to Hermann’s throat. “What about this?”

“It’s fine,” Hermann gasped. His fingers entangled with the back of Newt’s head to kiss him harder and Newt whined into his mouth as Hermann clenched his fingers, tugging lightly at his scalp. A flash from their Drift, a memory of heat pooling in his loins at having his hair pulled. Not his memory, Newt’s. Hermann tightened his fingers and the whine became a keen.

“Yeah ok, you got me. So I like it a little rough,” Newt panted. “Kinda messed up that they made  _me_  choke  _you_ , huh? Unless you like being choked? Do you like being choked, because I can do that if you…”

Hermann reached up and pressed his palm to Newt’s throat, clenching his fingers around it just tight enough to leave an imprint. A low groan rumbled in Newt’s chest and he ground against Hermann’s thigh. “What I want,” Hermann said, and lowered Newt down to his level without removing his hand, and kissed him breathless before breaking away, “is to forget—for at least a  _short_  time—that those bastards ever existed. If you don’t mind.”

“Ok… ok,” Newt nodded and moaned again as Hermann clenched his fingers again and dragged him down for another kiss. Hermann closed his eyes, losing himself in the warmth of Newton’s mouth on his, the familiarity of it, as if this is what his body was always meant for, when Newt broke away again and panted, “But are you sure this isn’t going to remind you of them? Because I’m ok with vanilla if…”

“Newton,” Hermann huffed a sigh, “ _not_  doing something you enjoy because of what they did to us is just as bad as  _constantly talking about them while we’re in bed_ , don’t you think?”

“Oh,” Newt said and Hermann seized the opportunity to return to kissing him only to sigh as Newt broke away again. “Ok but even if we’re  _not_  talking about the whole choking-you-while-possessed thing, are you sure you’re ok with this? I know some people think this stuff is kinda weird and no offense, you always struck me as a vanilla kind of guy. Either that or super freaky, but like there’s no in between. Unless I got the signals all wrong and the whole choking-and-hair-pulling thing is for you? Which, I’m not gonna lie, would be  _awesome_ , but…”

 _“Newton_ ,” Hermann repeated. Newt’s tirade stopped mid-word but from the look of him, not to mention nearly two decades of familiarity with the man’s  _many_  peculiarities, this subject was not going to be banished by kisses. A shame, really. Hermann did his best to clear the haze from his thoughts, lamenting that with it went some of the steadily building heat in order to say, “No, they’re not my preferences  _as such_  but that doesn’t matter. My  _preference_  is your pleasure. I don’t have to pretend to understand it to enjoy it…”

But he did. Even as he thought those words it was like opening a door he’d never known existed in his mind and he saw a flash of Newton’s memories buried since their Drift. Early introductions to pornography colored by the exotic fringes of internet sex culture. Whips and chains and leather turning simple bodily needs into  _desire_ , transforming Newton’s views of intimacy. The constant yammering at the back of Newt’s mind,  _is this enough, am I enough, if I let you do this to me will you be happy, if you gag me maybe I can finally shut up, and maybe my brain will shut up too for once…_  His interest in playing the submissive blooming from the need to be at the center of the attention he craved. Pain a sharp sting that made pleasure sweeter, a grain of salt to contrast the sugar. The allure of being tied up because he’s  _dangerous_ , he wanted to feel  _dangerous,_ he…

 _… feels dangerous_ now.  _What if they come back? What if I give in to them again, if they were here, waiting, waiting to hurt you. At least if I’m tied up, at least if you’re in charge they can’t hurt you,_ I _can’t hurt you, I don’t want to feel_ dangerous _anymore, I don’t…._

Hermann started and jerked back. Ghost Drift. After a decade of silence, he felt Newton’s thoughts like catching a whiff of faded perfume. Had Newton felt it too?

When he looked back at Newt he saw the other man watching at him, his lips twisted in discomfort. “ _Please_  tell me you didn’t hear that?” Newt winced.

Hermann’s lips parted, a quick denial rising, a lie to protect Newton’s privacy. And then the truth and a million words of comfort, admonishments that he could never be afraid of Newt, that Newt had nothing to fear in turn… all so terribly inadequate, all breaking down before him into another discussion of  _them_ , allowing _them_  back into their lives, into their bed in what should be their first time, in what was supposed to be  _theirs_  and not the Precursors’. They had already taken too much, and he would  _not_ allow them this.

“Lie back,” Hermann rasped. Newt startled, but acquiesced, scrambling off of Hermann to flop back onto the bed, staring up at him in question.

Hermann turned and fumbled for the bathrobe hanging off the post at the foot of the bed, pulling the soft terrycloth belt out of the loops. “Give me your wrists,” he muttered as he turned back and eyes widening, Newton held his tattooed arms before him without a word of protest.

Hermann tied a simple knot, laughably easy to escape with just a little twisting on Newt’s part, but when he drew it tight, Newton sighed and sank back into the mattress, the most relaxed Hermann had seen him since they found themselves in bed together. Without prompting, Newt put his hands above his head, stretched out for Hermann’s approval and…Oh, goodness, perhaps he  _could_  understand some of the appeal as his mouth watered at the sight and he licked his lips compulsively to wet them. Newton, sprawled and vulnerable for him, cock tenting the slacks he still wore.

First things first: getting rid of those.

Intimacy had never been easy for Hermann. Touching was forbidden except for a professional shaking of hands, the occasional perfunctory hug between family members, and he always found himself fumbling and uncertain in his few forays into relationships, knowing with every second that he was somehow doing it  _wrong_. He felt none of that now, none of the uncertainty. He simply did what his body wanted, what the echoes of memories in his mind left by Newt wanted. It was easy to follow his desire to press his lips to the colorful swirls of tattoos on Newton’s chest and kiss downward, brushing his lips against the light down of hair almost invisible against his tattoos on his chest, and trailing below his navel. Newt moaned and squirmed as Hermann undid the button of his trousers and pushed them down to reveal his boxers, punctuating the movement with more kisses.

“Is your leg ok?” Newt squeaked as the trousers dropped to the floor and Hermann returned to his place bracketed above Newt, his hands on either side of his chest, in control,  _just where Newt wanted him, just where he wanted to be…_

Hermann shook his head to clear the feeling of static, of Newt’s thoughts wafting off him like smoke and combining with his own. “I’m fully capable of worrying about my own leg, thank you.” The combination of wine with his pain medication had banished any traces of the usual pinch in his hip but just in case he shifted to keep the weight off his bad left leg at the reminder before lowering himself down to suck kisses once again at Newton’s throat. “Just lie there and be  _quiet_  for once in your life, you confounded man,” he muttered. Newton snorted.

“Make me,” Newt grinned up at him and with a sigh Hermann shifted to press their lips together, breath catching at the squirm of Newt’s tongue against his lips and then he was parting them to allow the intrusion, responding in kind. Newt arched up against him with a whine, grinding against Hermann’s good leg, eyes closed.

“What do you want?” Hermann muttered against his lips. He could kiss Newton for hours, but the heat in his loins was growing more insistent and he could only imagine Newt was in a similar place.

“Does that mean I’m allowed to talk?” Newt said, cracking one eye open. Hermann huffed and rolled his eyes. For good measure, he wrapped his hand once more around Newton’s throat as he deepened another kiss, pressing down with only the lightest pressure, barely there. Newt whined and arched up into the touch, babbling, “Fine, fine. Anything, man, I’ve been waiting for this so long I feel like I’m going to explode.”

Hermann paused, considering his options. He hadn’t exactly  _prepared_  for this eventuality, even as he had dreamt of it, almost nightly at this point. To do so had felt like arrogance, but at the moment it felt more like cowardice and poor planning.

Whatever happened they'd need to get Newton out of his boxers, and himself… he was down to an unbuttoned shirt and his trousers. The scars of old surgeries lurked beneath their protective covering, another imperfection that haunted his past attempts at intimacy. Newton wouldn’t care. He  _knew_  this for a fact, visible in all the tiny ways Newton had accommodated his disability, like an offered arm as they walked or proffering his cane there when he descended from the ladder after a long day at his equations. It was foolish to hesitate over being nude in front of Newton after all they’d been through, with Newt shameless and writhing beneath him now, and yet…

“Let’s get these off of you,” Hermann said as he tugged at Newton’s boxers.

“Oh, fuck. Jesus Christ,  _yes,_ ” Newt groaned as he kicked the boxers to the floor, looking down his colorful chest and stomach as Hermann positioned himself above Newt’s weeping cock, the head damp with pre-come.

Thankfully, it wasn’t hard to guess at what he should do once he took Newton's length in his mouth, even with all the time since his last fumbling attempts at pleasing another man. He simply did what he thought he would enjoy. And Newton, in turn, seemed to be enjoying himself. Newt kept his hands stretched out above him and his head pressed hard into the pillow as he arched with a rough moan, his heels scrabbling at the sheets at either side of Hermann as he struck a rhythm, squirming his tongue along the underside and massaging the inside of Newton’s thighs with his free hand.

“Yes, yesyes _yes_ , oh my  _god_ , Herms, you feel so fucking good, d-don’t stop, just…  _ah!_ ” Newt panted above him. There was an ache growing in Hermann’s jaw but it was a distant pang as babbled words and breathless sighs fell from Newt’s lips and he found himself grinding into the mattress, the front of his trousers dampening with desire as he tasted the first surges of salt while Newton whined. Just the thought of it, that Newton was close to climax, that  _Hermann_  was touching him with abandon, that  _he_  was the one making Newton mewl and cry out with pleasure was dizzying.

“Fucking  _hell_ , Hermann, I’m so close,  _please,_ ” Newt whined. His hips thrust minutely, not enough to choke but enough to set a rhythm, urging Hermann to speed up. At the thought of it, the thought of Newt whining and writhing beneath him, hands tied above him so he was helpless to do more than beg, Hermann moaned, the rumble of it vibrating in his chest. He squeezed the soft flesh of Newton's thighs, urging him on, and wished he could reach up to wrap his hand around Newt’s throat again to push him over the edge, but made do with tightening his lips and giving a hard suck until Newt’s babbling was reduced to a breathy wail.

He should have realized Newt would be as loud in this as he was in everything, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care or worry about being overheard on the other side of concrete walls as Newt’s moans rose in pitch and urgency, punctuated with bitten off syllables and cries of, “God, yes, fffuuck, Herms, oh my god _…!”_ He tasted the pulses of pre-come, sucking them down greedily before the final surge as Newton gasped and shuddered from head to toe, his heels digging at the bed as he cried out and came.

Newton lay there after, his chest rising and falling, his eyes closed, arms still stretched above him where they hadn’t moved since he put them there. Hermann swiped a tissue from the bedside table to wipe his mouth and hands before settling up beside Newton as he lay panting and dazed.

He’d barely lay back down before Newt's eyes opened to a slit, shockingly green, and he muttered, “God, I want to kiss you. Can I? Please, just let me, let me…” He turned his head and captured Hermann’s lips, unresisting, moaning against them, “Fuck, I can  _taste_  myself, this is so fucking hot,  _fuck…_  What can I do for you? Let me do something for you, babe, I gotta, or I’m gonna lose my mind…”

An image popped into Hermann’s mind, one he might have once hesitated to voice aloud as it was too much, too erotic, but in the haze of desire, there was no hesitation at all as he whispered back. “Get on the floor. On your knees.” Newt’s eyes widened and he scrambled upright, his fingers tugging at the terrycloth belt around his wrists before Hermann interrupted, “Leave the ropes on.”

“Oh  _fuck_ ,” Newt gasped, looking dazed and nearly falling off the bed in a heap in his scramble to kneel on the floor. The picture he made there was… indescribable. His face flushed, his softened cock damp from Hermann’s mouth, his pupils blown wide as he stared up at Hermann with his bound hands held before him. Hermann made short work of his fly, pulling himself free, but hesitating at the last. At Newton seeing.

“God, please, let me, please…” Newt babbled. His bound wrists left his fingers free and he tugged at Hermann’s trousers. “Come on, man, it’s only fair. I’ll make it good, I’ll make it so good, just let me  _please…_ ”

Another moment’s hesitation, but at Newton’s pleading, at the desire pulsing in his own lower belly, Hermann relented and shucked off the trousers along with his briefs. He winced as the thick white scar on his hip emerged, but Newton barely spared it a glance, instead pressing his face against the black thatch of hair at Hermann’s crotch and inhaling like he was a starving man at a feast, before swallowing Hermann down.

Hermann gave a strangled moan, falling back onto his hands against the bed as his head tilted back. Newt hummed with pleasure around his cock, saliva dripping from his stretched lips and, God, Hermann wasn’t sure how long he would last if he kept looking at him, but he couldn't look away either. His hands found Newton’s hair on instinct, on the hint of a memory not his own, and  _clenched_ , guiding Newton’s rhythm on his cock.

Newton whimpered and stared up with heavy-lidded eyes at Hermann’s face before they slid shut again, as he seemed to lose himself. Hermann’s breath shortened and the tightness, the  _heat_  in his lower belly mounted at the sight, at Newton’s bound hands, the flush on his face as swallowed around Hermann’s cock, the  _mess_  of it, the  _bliss…_

Hermann came with a breathless shout, fingers clutching at Newt’s hair, holding him in place as Newt moaned around him, and swallowed every drop.

“Was it good?” Newt said dazedly once he let Hermann’s cock slip free of his mouth, staring up at Hermann from the floor like a supplicant.

Hermann made a wordless noise at the back of his throat, and beckoned Newt up, then wrapped his arms around Newt's shoulders as tight as he could, until his arms shook, and dragged Newt back down with him to the bed, covering his face in kisses. Newt snorted a laugh but didn’t stop Hermann until they were panting side by side, grinning like fools at one another.

“We,” Newt pronounced, “are fucking morons for not doing that sooner.”

Hermann hummed in agreement and pressed his face into Newt’s throat, marking it too with kisses. Only when the haze cleared did it suddenly occur to him. “Newton, your wrists!”

“Forget it,” Newt murmured. “It feels nice. And it’s not like I couldn’t get out myself, dude. We’re going to need to have a talk about your knot work if we do this again.”

“And about including a gag,” Hermann countered.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” Newt grinned.

For a moment, Hermann could only stare, searching Newt’s face for any reluctance, for any disappointment with what had transpired but all he saw was contentment, bliss. “Morons indeed,” Hermann murmured.

“Definitely. And hey, what was that earlier about you wanting to make an honest man of me, or was that the wine talking? I’m guessing you’re having second thoughts now that you’ve got your rocks off?”

Newt’s tone was light, there was no doubt he was joking, but at even the suggestion shock thrilled through Hermann, and he pressed his hand to Newt’s face, looking deep into his eyes. “ _Never_ ,” he insisted. “Never. Newton, as long as you’ll have me, I am never leaving your side again, I will never  _abandon_  you like I did again, I…”

“Hey,” Newt interrupted. “If I can’t talk about them in bed, you can’t either. House rules. Because I say so.”

Hermann stopped, lips sealing closed. Newton had a point. To go down the path was to give those creatures a place in their lives, power over their lives even now that they didn’t deserve. “Fine. Perhaps even you can have some good ideas at times.”

“Well, let’s not go  _too_ far.”

Hermann laughed under his breath and for good measure pressed another kiss to Newt’s lips, tasting himself, their lovemaking. Their first time. Hopefully, the first of many. “It wasn’t the wine talking. If you’d have me, Newton…”

“We’ll talk about it,” Newt said, and kissed him back before shooting a coy look. “But it’s not a no.”

**Author's Note:**

> I do hope you enjoyed! Please consider leaving a comment if you have a moment, it would mean the world to me!


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